Maria Cristina Rangel

National Institutes of Health | NIH · Mouse Cancer Genetics Program

Radiation induces the generation of Platelet-activating factor receptor (PAF-R) ligands, including PAF and oxidized phospholipids. Alternatively, PAF is also synthesized by the biosynthetic enzymes lysophosphatidylcholine acyltransferases (LPCATs) which are expressed by tumor cells including melanoma. The activation of PAF-R by PAF and oxidized lip...

Cancer has been considered as temporal and spatial aberrations of normal development in tissues. Similarities between mammary embryonic development and cell transformation suggest that the underlying processes required for mammary gland development are also those perturbed during various stages of mammary tumorigenesis and breast cancer (BC) develo...

Nucleic acid-based assemblies that interact with each other and further communicate with the cellular machinery in a controlled manner represent a new class of reconfigurable materials that can overcome limitations of traditional biochemical approaches and improve the potential therapeutic utility of nucleic acids. This notion enables the developme...

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a critical multistep process that converts epithelial cells to more motile and invasive mesenchymal cells, contributing to body patterning and morphogenesis during embryonic development. In addition, both epithelial plasticity and increased motility and invasiveness are essential for the branching morph...

p>Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents the poorest prognosis among all of breast cancer subtypes with no currently available effective therapy. In this study, we hypothesized that sulforaphane (SFN), a dietary component abundant in broccoli and its sprouts, can inhibit malignant cell proliferation and tumor sphere formation of cancer ste...

Nitric oxide (NO) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) exert profound biological impacts dictated by their chemistry. Understanding their spatial distribution is essential for deciphering their roles in diverse biological processes. This review establishes a framework for the chemical biology of NO and RNS, exploring their dynamic reactions within t...

From an evolutive perspective, tumor cells endure successive turnover upon stress conditions and pressure to adapt to new environments. These cells use exceptional communication skills to share biological information to “survive upon every metabolic cost”. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a miscellaneous collection of cells, factors, and extrace...

RNA nanoparticles are promising therapeutic platforms to improve radiotherapy since they can be functionalized with multiple small interfering RNAs (RNAi) to simultaneously silence critical radioresistance genes. Here we describe the transfer of RNA rings to mammalian cancer cells through reverse transfection, followed by in vitro irradiation and b...

Considering tumors from an evolucionary perspective, successive tumor cells undergo turnover in response to stressful conditions which pressures tumor cells to adapt to a new environment. Tumor cells uses parts of themselves to communicate and share biological information, known as extracellular vesicles (EV) secretion to promote their survival and...

A strong correlation between NOS2 and COX2 tumor expression and poor clinical outcomes in ER breast cancer has been established. However, the mechanisms of tumor induction of these enzymes are unclear. Analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) revealed correlations between NOS2 and COX2 expression and Th1 cytokines. Herein, single-cell RNAseq anal...

A strong correlation between NOS2 and COX2 tumor expression and poor clinical outcomes in ER-breast cancer has been established. However, mechanisms of tumor induction of these enzymes are unclear. Analysis of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) revealed correlations between NOS2 and COX2 expression and Th1 cytokines. Herein, single cell RNAseq analysis...

The inflammatory process often modifies the natural history of cancers. There is broad evidence that chronic inflammatory responses, associated with, e.g., persistent viral or bacterial infections, promote carcinogenesis. Cancer treatment is also associated with an inflammatory process that may either induce an antitumor immune response or, convers...

Cancer is a major public health concern worldwide responsible for high morbidity and mortality rates. Alternative therapies have been extensively investigated, and plant-derived compounds have caught the attention of the scientific community due to their chemopreventive and anticancer effects. Sulforaphane (SFN) is one of these naturally occurring...

The unbalanced coagulation of blood is a life-threatening event that requires accurate and timely treatment. We introduce a user-friendly biomolecular platform based on modular RNA-DNA anticoagulant fibers programmed for reversible extracellular communication with thrombin and subsequent control of anticoagulation via a "kill-switch" mechanism that...

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex environment where cancer cells reside and interact with different types of cells, secreted factors, and the extracellular matrix. Additionally, TME is shaped by several processes, such as autophagy. Autophagy has emerged as a conserved intracellular degradation pathway for clearance of damaged organelle...

The master regulators of embryonic development, Cripto and Notch, play key roles in modulating mammary gland morphogenesis and cell fate specification in the embryo through fetal mammary stem cells and in the adult organism particularly within the adult mammary stem cells, which determine mammary progenitor cell lineages that generate the basal/myo...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) represents the poorest prognosis among the breast cancer subtypes and no current standard therapy. TNBC tumors are enriched with stem-like cells that are resistant to standard targeted drugs. Thus, it is urgent to develop new agents that are non-toxic and specifically efficacious against these cancer stem cells...

Cripto-1, a member of the epidermal growth factor-Cripto-1-FRL-1-Cryptic family, is critical for early embryonic development. Together with its ligand Nodal, Cripto-1 has been found to be associated with the undifferentiated status of mouse and human embryonic stem cells. Several studies have clearly shown that Cripto-1 is involved in regulating br...

Cripto-1 (CR-1) is a multifunctional embryonic protein that is re-expressed during inflammation, wound repair, and malignant transformation. CR-1 can function either as a tethered co-receptor or shed as a free ligand underpinning its flexible role in cell physiology. CR-1 has been shown to mediate cell growth, migration, invasion, and induce epithe...

Approximately 10-20% of breast cancer consists of triple-negative tumors, which present the poorest prognosis among the different subtypes. The triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) tumors are known to be enriched with stem-like cells that are resistant to standard targeted drugs. Thus, it is extremely important to develop new agents that are non-to...

The PLSCR family has been proposed to play a role in the redistribution of plasma membrane phospholipids. Recent work on the PLSCRs has revealed their additional functions such as signal transduction and lipid metabolism. The most studied member of this family, PLSCR1, has been shown to partition into lipid rafts implicating it in the regulation an...

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) presents the poorest prognosis among the breast cancer subtypes and no current standard therapy. Here, we performed an in-depth molecular analysis of a mouse model that establishes spontaneous lung metastasis from JygMC(A) cells. These primary tumors resembled the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) both phenot...

Cripto-1 (CR-1)/Teratocarcinoma-derived growth factor1 (TDGF-1) is a cell surface glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-linked glycoprotein that can function either in cis (autocrine) or in trans (paracrine). The cell membrane cis form is found in lipid rafts and endosomes while the trans acting form lacking the GPI anchor is soluble. As a member of t...

Background Translational exploration of bacterial toxins has come to the forefront of research given their potential as a chemotherapeutic tool. Studies in select tissues have demonstrated that Clostridium perfringens iota toxin binds to CD44 and lipolysis stimulated lipoprotein receptor (LSR) cell-surface proteins. We recently demonstrated that LS...

Cripto-1 is highly expressed in undifferentiated pluripotential human and mouse embryonic stem cells. Cripto-1 is re-expressed in a variety of human tumors, promoting cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Cripto-1 expression is very low or absent in the adult mouse and human tissues. During embryogenesis, Cripto-1 functions as a co-receptor...

Proceedings: AACR 104th Annual Meeting 2013; Apr 6-10, 2013; Washington, DC The embryonic gene Cripto-1 (Cr-1) is expressed at very low levels in normal adult tissues and detected at high levels in several human tumors. We have previously found that Cr-1 can facilitate the proteolytic intracellular processing of all four Notch receptors. Transgeni...

Human Cripto-1 (CR-1) plays an important role in regulating embryonic development while also regulating various stages of tumor progression. However, mechanisms that regulate CR-1 expression during embryogenesis and tumorigenesis are still not well defined. In the present study, we investigated the effects of two nuclear receptors, liver receptor h...

Cripto-1 is implicated in multiple cellular events, including cell proliferation, motility and angiogenesis, through the activation of an intricate network of signaling pathways. A crosstalk between Cripto-1 and the canonical Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway has been previously described. In fact, Cripto-1 is a downstream target gene of the canonica...

Human Cripto-1 has been implicated in embryogenesis and tumorigenesis. During early embryonic development, Cripto-1 functions as a co-receptor for transforming growth factor-β family members, including Nodal/growth differentiation factors 1 and 3, and is essential for mesoderm and endoderm formation and anterior/posterior and left-right axis establ...

Over the past few decades, our understanding of the embryonic gene Cripto-1 has considerably advanced through biochemical, cell biology, and animal studies. Cripto-1 performs key functions during embryonic development, while it dramatically disappears in adult tissues, except possibly in adult tissue stem cells. Cripto-1 is re-expressed in human tu...

In the present study we performed a yeast two-hybrid (Y2H) screen to search for novel Cripto-1 (CR-1) binding proteins that might modulate CR-1-dependent signaling pathways involving Nodal/Gdf3/Smad 2/3 or GRP78/glypican-1/c-src. Screening a mouse embryo or human colon cDNA prey library with a peptide sequence of CR-1, we isolated six candidate gen...

Cripto-1 (CR-1) is a cell-membrane protein that is overexpressed in several different types of human carcinomas. We have previously shown that TGFβ1 and Activins can enhance CR-1 expression while BMP2 and BMP4 can inhibit CR-1 expression in NTERA-2 embryonal carcinoma cells and in LS174T colon cancer cells. Nevertheless, there is still a very incom...

Cripto-1 is a membrane bound protein that belongs to the epidermal growth factor (EGF)-CFC (Cripto/FRL-1/cryptic) protein family. Cripto-1 is a co-receptor for the transforming growth factor-β related protein Nodal and together with Nodal induces Smad-2/3 phosphorylation through the serine-threonine kinase receptor ALK-4. Furthermore, Cripto-1 can...

Alternative splicing (AS) is a central mechanism in the generation of genomic complexity and is a major contributor to transcriptome and proteome diversity. Alterations of the splicing process can lead to deregulation of crucial cellular processes and have been associated with a large spectrum of human diseases. Cancer-associated transcripts are po...

Cripto-1 is critical for early embryonic development and, together with its ligand Nodal, has been found to be associated with the undifferentiated status of mouse and human embryonic stem cells. Like other embryonic genes, Cripto-1 performs important roles in the formation and progression of several types of human tumors, stimulating cell prolifer...

Several studies have shown that cell fate regulation during embryonic development and oncogenic transformation share common regulatory mechanisms and signaling pathways. Indeed, an embryonic gene member of the EGF-Cripto-1/FRL1/Cryptic family, Cripto-1, has been implicated in embryogenesis and in carcinogenesis. Cripto-1 together with the TGF-beta...

Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC Human Cripto-1 (CR-1) is a membrane bound protein that belongs to the epidermal growth factor (EGF)-CFC family. CR-1 plays an important role in regulating embryonic development while also having significant implications in various forms of carcinogenesis. Previous studie...

Nodal and Notch signaling pathways play essential roles in vertebrate development. Through a yeast two-hybrid screening, we identified Notch3 as a candidate binding partner of the Nodal coreceptor Cripto-1. Coimmunoprecipitation analysis confirmed the binding of Cripto-1 with all four mammalian Notch receptors. Deletion analyses revealed that the b...

The identification of alternatively spliced transcripts has contributed to a better comprehension of developmental mechanisms, tissue-specific physiological processes and human diseases. Polymerase chain reaction amplification of alternatively spliced variants commonly leads to the formation of heteroduplexes as a result of base pairing involving e...